Playing-cards.



G. J. SCHIED.

I PLAYING CARDS.

APPLICATION FILED FEB. 21, I917.

1,248,95. Patented Oct. 23, 1917.

XYLOGRAPH WASHINGTON V ESTERDAY INSTRUMENT (DUR YRRD DESOLATIONPATROLMEN HAND-SOMELY [hue/ 1 for 9 i e JSC/id MZZSQAZTORIVEKS GEORGE J.SCHIED, OF ROCHESTER, NEW YORK.

PLAYING-CARDS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Oct. 23, 1917.

Application filed February 21, 1917. Serial No. 149,992.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE Source, of

Rochester, in the county of Monroe and State of New York, have inventedcertain new and useful Improvements in Playingaccompanying drawings,forming a part of this specification, and to the reference-numeralsmarked thereon.

My present invention relates to games and toys-and it has for its objectto provide a pack or deck of playing cards by means of which severalamusing and instructive games may be played to the educational advantageof children and others. The invention contemplates the unconsciousinstruc' tion or drill of the player in both spelling and counting atthe same time increasing his familiarity with all the letters of thealphabet in their diflerent usual styles and with the numbers. To theseand other ends the invention resides in certain improvements andcombinations of parts all as will be hereinafter more fully described,the novel features being pointed out in the claims at' the end of thespecification.-

In the drawings:

Figure 1 is a representation of three cards of each of the four suits oftwenty-six cards each that I prefer to employ in the practice of myinvention, the suits being arranged in vertical rows;

Fig. 2 represents in a horizontal row four of the ten numeral cards usedin one of the games for which the invention is adapted.

The deck consists of: 104 cards divided into at suits of contrastingcolors. drawings, the cards of the first suit are indicated by 1, of thesecond suit by 2; of the third suit by 3, and of the fourth suit by 4.There are 26 cards to a suit and each card bears a letter of thealphabet so that all of the 26 letters are represented in each suit.Aside from the difference in color previously mentioned, the style ofthe letters is difierent in each suit. stance, the cards of the firstsuit bear capital block or print letters in black; those of the secondgroup block or print letters in yellow; those of the third suit capitalscript letters in red, and those of the fourth suit, small scriptletters in blue. In each instance, there may be a letter of largeproportions in the center of the card and In the In the presentinsmaller letters in opposite corners, as shown in the drawings.

There is a variety of games more or less similar to each other that canbe played; but the fundamental theme of each is the spelling of words bythe players by combinations of the letters of the cards composing hishand and it is-not believed to be necessary to go into detail as to therules that have been devised for each game or to more than generallypoint out the discriminations that may be made in governing the relativevalues of the hands. The four sets of alphabets make it possible for aplayer to hold the proper cards to spell most any word, even though itmay contain double letters or four appearances of the same let ter. Asno two cards have the same letter in the same style or formation, valuesmay be assigned to thehand accordingly as a word spelled by that handappears in one or another type of letters. in accordance with one gamethat has been devised, a hand is of value according to the number ofletters in the word that is spelled. If it consists of a mixture of allof the four styles of letters or of two or three of them, it has noadded value; if it is composed entirely of small script letters of thefourth suit, it is of greater value; if it begins with a capital scriptletter of the third suit and the rest are small script letters of thefourth suit, it is of greater value and higher values may be similarlyallotted to all capital script letters, small block or print letters,small block or script letters beginning with a capital, or all blockcapitals of the first suit, the latter representing the highest hand.These values are, of course, arbitrarily relative and, of course, may beinterchanged as desired and made to modify or combine with the valuesderived from the number of letters in the word that is spelled.

Thehands may be formed and new cards introduced to complete them in anyof the ways common to card games. They may be dealt around ininstallments or drawings made from the deck or traded between the handsand discards may be drawn or dealt over again as desired. Also, handsmay be called and compared to terminate a'period or determine a count ofa play or counts may be aggregated according to the values of each handwithout a comparison of the hands. When a player is unable to spell aword at the conclusion of a hand or when For instance,

a call is made, he may be set back a certain number of points accordingto the contents of his hand or the value of the winning hand. All thesematters relate to the proc ess of the game rather than to thecharacteristics of the cards and my invention is not limited to any ofthese rules of procedure which are not related to my improvements inplaying cards except in so far as they illustrate the wide range ofuseful application and amusement that the nature of the pack orcombination of cards that I provide can produce.

The use of the cards so far described acquaints the player with thedifferent letters and with the different styles of letters and drillshim in the spelling and formation of words. To similarly teach thenumerals, ll provide the series of ten cards, four of which arerepresented in Fig. 2. The game as heretofore explained, presupposes theselection of any Word by a player such, for instance, as would best suitthe contents of his hand. With the cards of Fig. 2 introduced into thegame, each player is restricted to the formation of a word of a certainnumber of letters or, by another rule, of certain specific wordscontaining a certain number of letters. The said cards of Fig. 2 eachbear a numeral from 1 to 9 and zero and each contains one or more wordscomprising a number of letters indicated by the numeral on the card. Onecard is dealt to each player with his hand and his aim is to endeavor tospell a word on his card or a word of the number of letters indicated bythe numeral on the card. In the present instance, the zero is assignedwords of ten letters and. the number 1 card bears no words. The lattercard may be considered to authorize the player to spell any word or,say, anyword containing more or lessthan three, four or five letters. Itis possible to shuffle the numeral cards with the letter cards and makethe restrictions as to Words or numbers of letters a matter of chance.

From the foregoing, it is believed, the possibilities of my novel packof cards will be understood. lhey have a wide range of usefulness in thematter of elasticity in the rules that govern play, whereas they bringbefore the player all the difi erent letters and all the differentnumerals and lead to exercise in the use of the latter and in thecorrect formation of words. It may also be pointed out that by usingonly the first thirteen cards of each alphabet or suit, a deck of 52cards may be made up having relative values as to suits and units in thesuit that permit of use for playing any of the known games for whichordinary playing cards are adapted.

neaaeea I claim as my invention:

1. A pack of playing cards comprising a plurality of suits, each suitconstituting an alphabet of which the respective letters are arrangedone on each card of the suit, the letters of each suit being of a styledifferent from the letters of the other suit or suits.

2. A pack of playing cards comprising a plurality of suits, each suitconstituting an alphabet of which the respective letters are arrangedone on each card of the suit, the letters of each suit being of a styleand of a color different from the letters of the other suit or suits.

3. A pack of playing cards comprising a plurality of suits, each suitconstituting an alphabet of which the respective letters are arrangedone on each card of the suit, the letters of one suit being capitals andof another suit small letters.

4. A pack of playing cards comprising a plurality of suits, each suitconstituting an alphabet of which the respective letters are arrangedone on each card of the suit, the letters of one suit being capitals andthose of another suit small letters of a corresponding type. I

5. A pack of playing cards comprising a plurality of suits, each suitconstituting an alphabet of which the respective letters are arrangedone'on each card of the suit, the letters of one suit being block typeand those of another script type.

6. A pack of playing cards comprising four suits, each suit constitutingan alphabet of which the respective letters are ar ranged one on eachcard of the suit and the types of letters of the four alphabets being,respectively, capital block, small block, capital script and smallscript.

7. A pack of playing cards comprising four suits of diflerent colors,each suit constituting an alphabet of which the respec tive letters arearranged one on each card of the suit and the types of letters of thefour alphabets being, respectively, capital block, small block, capitalscript and small script.

8. A pack of playing cards comprising a plurality of suits, each suitconstituting an alphabet of which the respective letters are arrangedone on each card of the suit, the letters of each suit being of a styledifferent from the letters of the other suit or suits, in combinationwith a set of cards each bearing a numeral and a Word, the lattercomposed of the number of letters represented by the numeral.

GEORGE J. SCHIED. Witnesses RUssELL B. GRIFFITH, AGNES Nnsnrr'r BIssELL.

